Monday, May 26, 2014

Armchair BEA 2014: Day 1

BEA stands for the "Book Expo America" and is an annual convention for industry professionals. Many book bloggers attend BEA each year and it's just a really fun time. Some of us, unfortunately, cannot go so Armchair BEA was created to be a virtual convention to emulate the same fun you get at BEA! More information can be found on their website here.

Hello friends! If you're a book blogger, you've probably heard about BEA. These past few weeks, my feed has been littered with BEA posts and while part of me is super excited for everyone who is going to then report back to us about how it was, part of me wants to shut everything out because ALL THE SADS. I mean, what could be better than a weekend spent with books and bookish people and maybe even your FAVOURITE authors in NEW YORK?

So thank goodness for Armchair BEA where all of us who aren't able to make it to New York for BEA can have our own fun little convention! I didn't participate last year but this year, I thought WHY NOT. I may not be the best at keeping to all the activities because I do have end-of-school studying and work to do BUT we shall see.

Today is just going to be a little question and answer session with myself to tell you a little bit more about me!

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging? Where in the world are you blogging from?

Hi, my name is Annie and that right there is my face. I'm currently 14 years old but I will be turning 15 in December this year! Contrary to popular belief, both my parents are indeed Chinese and I was not born in China. I was actually born in Canada so I am 100% a Canadian citizen. I live in the wonderful province of Ontario in the wonderful city of Toronto which I love a lot. I enjoy listening to music, cooking, pottery, skating, eating and sleeping. Some other things too that I can't remember. I've been blogging for almost TWO YEARS now (it'll be two at the end of August) but The Runaway Reader has only been in existence for about eight months. Blogging has been something that I've done since 2009 but BOOK BLOGGING, I only got into in the summer of 2012 after finding other book blogs. And also it was summer and what else do you do during the summer besides trying new things?

2. Describe your blog in just one sentence. Then, list your social details -- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. -- so we can connect more online.

The Runaway Reader is lots of bookish fun with other things tossed on the side.

I'm not exclusionary to any genres because while some I may not enjoy as much, I believe that a book I love can be found in every genre and I don't want to miss out on a chance to find that book! I also really like change and trying new things so I always MAKE an effort to try and read things in different genres. HOWEVER, I have to say that I read the most books from the contemporary genre and that has been my go-to genre for a very long time. It's comforting for me and I love it even though I would really love if I would get more out there in the playing field in terms of what I read. But no matter what, I always come back to contemporary.

4. What is your favourite blogging resource?

There are a lot but I have to go with Goodreads because where would I be without it? The site could really use with some tweaks because gosh, is it outdated but I am not complaining because it honestly helps me so much in terms of blogging stuff.

5. What book would you love to see as a movie?

I would love to see To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han as a movie because I think that would make the best sleepover movie ever! And judging from the amount of testosterone-filled, action movies with machine guns and bombs, I definitely think we need more light and fun movies a la 10 Things I Hate About You or Mean Girls. The 90's and the early 2000's were great times for the rom-com and while I love EXPLOSIONS just as much as the next person, I don't need to see a string of shoddily made explosion movies week after week. Rant over.

So that's it for Armchair BEA day 1! There was my little interview session with myself. Hopefully you learned something new about me and if you're participating as well, link your post down in the comments! Or if not, then let's just have a little chat and tell me what genre you read the most, what your favourite blogging resource is, etc.